Architectural designs for various types of construction, including buildings and bridges, call for the use of brick in the construction of walls. Although ordinarily of little structural importance in modern construction projects, brick walls continue to be used for decorative architectural purposes. However, making walls entirely of brick and mortar has become relatively expensive in recent years in comparison to poured concrete. One development that has reduced the cost of brick walls has been the use of decorative thin bricks, which are cast into concrete wall panels. Such decorative bricks are significantly thinner than normal bricks and therefore are significantly less expensive than normal bricks per square foot of wall coverage.
Decorative bricks cannot be made into a regular brick wall. In order to cast the decorative bricks into the concrete walls, polymer brick formliners were developed, which have a plurality of brick-receiving recesses. The brick-receiving recesses are designed to hold the decorative bricks in place during the casting of concrete walls. The brick-receiving recesses are formed into the formliners in regular brick patterns, with each recess having the same depth, so as to create a clean and organized brick appearance in the final panel product. Such formliners are first placed on a surface capable of supporting the weight of the formliners, decorative bricks, and poured concrete. Decorative bricks are then placed into the formliners and concrete is cast on top of the decorative bricks and formliners. After curing, the formliner is removed, revealing the wall having decorative bricks separated by cement mortar joints, ready for use in construction.
Unfortunately, the clean and organized appearance of the final brick-lined concrete panel has resulted in an unforeseen aesthetic problem. The use of such formliners in the manufacture of buildings has resulted in a very consistent appearance in such prefabricated wall sections. One purpose that drove the development of brick formliners was the creation of a wall that had the appearance of hand-laid brick, without the extra cost associated with it. However, the regularity and precision of the thin brick placement, which is the result of the use of current brick formliners, has resulted in the mass production of brick lined concrete panels that appear as though they have been manufactured by a machine rather than built up by hand.
Furthermore, previous master molds for producing polymer formliners were made from a very dense material, such as aluminum or steel. While this makes it easy to remove the formliner from the master mold during formliner manufacturing, it results in a very unnatural glass smooth joint when the form liners are used in combination with brick and cementitious material to produce wall sections.
What is needed is a new type of formliner that can be used to manufacture a brick wall which has the appearance that it was built by hand, rather than manufactured with a brick formliner.